Penny wise pound a foolish

Are you an independent girl living in the city, earning and trying to make it big? Or just trying to live in the city? What really defines an independent girl? The power to make your own decisions? The freedom to eat anywhere and do anything? Or the sheer joy of being able to shop without long discussions and arguments with your parents?

Monetary freedom means that now I can buy whatever I want and from wherever I want. But limited monetary freedom means that “wherever” is restricted to discounts, online websites, coupons and freebies. Not that I am complaining. With a whole wide array of items available everywhere and amazing websites with discount coupons I can manage to upgrade my shopping list to a level 2 of the shoppers’ arena with Steve Maddens, NYX and Fendi on discount, level 1 being LV, GUCCI, Prada et all.

And this is where a man comes in and messes up the whole game. He wants to shop for you and the shopper in you, the girl who loves labels she can’t afford feels ecstatic and on cloud nine until the cloud rudely bursts. Should you kick your self-respect and the whole independent theme in the butt and let him buy expensive items for you or should you take the high road and politely refuse?

Arguments galore, the man in question and well, many men, try to talk “sense” into you by claiming that this is the way they can show their “affection” for you plus you are his “girl” so they want to shop for you. But then again, are you a commodity? And when you try and apply the same logic to men, he is your “guy” and you should shop for him. Why doesn’t this work? Why does feminism take a back seat in this conversation?

Looking around one can see so many girls sporting Louboutins and Louis Vuittons that you wonder where exactly are they working and how do I get a job there? When you see their better halves trudging behind them straddling bags of more louboutins. Can a girl have enough shoes?

Personally, I am embattled with this, my writing pays me to go splurge on me and then Mr. I-will-shop-for-you decides to buy me something I might like. Well, he decides and the actual buying rarely happens (if he is determined and consumed in a passion for me and an even higher passion for showing his potency as a money minting alpha male). What happened to alpha females I may ask?

So over a large bottle of water and a determined eye, I go around scrounging a store (usually The Body Shop or Steve Madden) to find my bit of heaven and he may surprise me occasionally with a gift card or a nice watch from a nice store (Swarovski?) But then again, he does earn more than me (right now) and once I hit it off as a filmmaker then it will be me buying expensive Rolex watches and luxury Yacht cruises. When it comes to men, it really is difficult to buy him a gift.

Or maybe he likes to buy me an occasional something because it is a nice gesture and I do the same (or I try too). 

The marriage conundrum

Marriages are made in heaven and with the advent of the marriage season in Delhi, the city is snowballed with traffic jams, loud music, blocked roads and processions made up of heavily dressed people. Not criticising the wedding ceremony per se, all weddings are crazy, its a licence for people to showoff as much as they can, from dresses and food to the loudest music and fattest aunty.
Somehow the traditions involved in a typical Hindu wedding are what irk me the most (I don't know about other weddings so pardon me, but I am pretty sure that almost all types of weddings come with their own package of ancient redundant activities garbed in veil of 'tradition'). Coming back to a Hindu wedding, the "wedding" starts when a local priest is called on to determine the best possible moment and day to get married, so instead of choosing a day that will be convenient to everyone and the bride and groom (say a weekend or some holiday maybe?), an outlandish day right smack in the middle of the most important season of exams or audits or some tournament is chosen. Then with a flourish the priest will decide that at exactly 4: 47 in the morning the wedding ceremony should commence, the pheras in the case of most Hindus. So the swollen eyed people, crappy children and pitiful bride groom gather around a pyre while the priest recites mantras and gives his stamp of approval. Well, it makes perfect sense, why should the bride and the groom have a say in their wedding? The priest is the most important entity apparently and he will decide. Maybe he should decide the timing of the bowel movements as well, makes for better digestion that just going and shitting at any random moment. Doesn't it?
Then there is the roka or the engagement ceremony. Its a party with the exchange of rings and its fine. No nonsense (usually), the couple exchanges rings and you are done. Go dance, have a ball, be happy, you are getting married!
One thing that stabs a knife right into my feminist heart is the tradition (for a lack of a better word) where after the wedding ceremony, the poor girl has to leave her parent's house and go to the groom's house. Ermmm Shouldn't the couple go to their own house? Why should the poor girl be treated like an object that should be exchanged while the smug groom looks on? Why cant this be a marriage between two people rather than a complicated handing over ceremony of the daughter? This beats me.
And the various other things that keep happening, from summoning distant relatives who feel obliged to give some sort of token for their presence, it doesn't matter that the couple hasn't really heard of this aunty who is the maasi of the bride's father's sister husband, they have to come and perform some elaborate act in front of the pyre for the mere fact that they are related.
Why cant a wedding ceremony be without all this fuss? It is a beautiful day to be celebrated by the couple and their family, leave it at that. Get married at a convenient time, do away with the things that waste time. Sign a contract and be legally married and party for two days or seven, its your wish.
Two people are getting married. Get over it.

Jules et Jim (Jules and Jim) 1962

Director: Francois Truffaut

Jules et Jim is considered one of the best works of the French New Wave cinema. Giving a great importance to cinematography, the importance of the camera in films is highlighted. Due to monetary and ideological reasons, the departure from elaborate sets and costumes is very much evident as in every other new wave film; real locations and outdoors are of great importance.

Technique:

Jules et Jim employs many innovative techniques in the film which still now inspire and affect many filmmakers and their styles. With the use of jump cuts, panning shots and dolly Truffaut makes the narration fast paced and exhilarating as the story speeds along 25 years of the friendship. He employs the use of freeze frames which are almost indecipherable and any cinephile would notice this influence in a Scorsese or a Tarantino film.

Another interesting aspect is the use of archival footage and snapshots that deliberately move the art of filmmaking away from the classical Hollywood technique of classified shots and direction. Camera movement in the film is also very obvious in many scenes where the viewer can actually make out the camera moving as the frame changes on screen.

Characters:

As the story is set in the time from the beginning of World War 1 to the rise of Hitler, feminism is a strong motif in the film throughout, with the character of Catherine defying all traditional “values” of being a woman with her free spirit and her beliefs. There is a scene in the film where Jules talks about how a woman is always second to a man and is always a ‘slut’ and Catherine retaliates by jumping into the river before asking Jim to protest against Jules’ views.

Hers is the most interesting character and the catalyst of all events. She knows she can control men around her and does that to her enjoyment. Sometimes she is emotionally drawn to someone while other times declares herself ‘heartless’. Had she existed today, she would challenged every woman around her, a dynamic and excitable woman, Catherine with her shades of grey and a flawed moral judgement still doesn’t let the audience hate her.

Jules on the other hand is the image of an ideal lover, ever faithful, as a friend and as a husband, he understand the needs of his wife and his best friend and even the people around him that he is ready to sacrifice his happiness for them. An adjusting character that finds happiness in every situation and doesn’t really question much around him.

Jim is a stronger version of Jules who values his friendship with Jules a lot. He shares his interests with Jules and together they are formidable partnership which cannot be destroyed by anything or anyone. They share their thoughts, secrets and lives. Jim is one person who develops the most in the film, challenging what everyone does and his role in things, finally changing himself.

The real World and the film:

As the world around them changes, Europe is declining into a state of war with World War 1 and the rise of Hitler, the film looks at it from the point of view of the three characters and their relationship which stands the test of the Great War despite them being from enemy countries.

The lives around them change, people mature, the way of living is changing following this, their dynamics also change as their personality adapts to everything around them.

A scene in the film has them discuss how women are now wearing shorter skirts and cut their hair short much to the disdain of married soldiers and how French wine is better than German beer. Theirs is a strong influence of French culture and a foreigner’s view is also employed with Jules being an Austrian in the film. France is looked upon as an open society with a great stress upon leisure and how the war and circumstances change that for people who start looking upon the life seriously and as the rise of Hitler is a tragic turn for the world, the film also takes a tragic turn in the end.

MBA entrances: Do they actually test you or your rote learning skills?

A year and a half ago I tried preparing for an MBA entrance exam mostly because I was bored and was looking for avenues other than engineering and partially because I found the tests intriguing, the test of your English ability, the analytical and logical ones and all. So I joined an institute with some of my classmates and soon enough I was completely disillusioned and left it after a month.

I have always had a romantic view of examinations. They test you on what you know, what you have learnt and liked. I never liked rote learning and the obtuse importance placed on them by every institution of learning. I have always read my books with great joy and loved learning from them, from genetics and particle physics in school to reading Shakespeare and renaissance history, maybe because I had such teachers who placed more importance on what I have learnt and grasped rather than what I could vomit, it had always been a pleasurable experience.

So when I sat for my first MBA coaching class, the teacher gave us an English ability test, asking us to fill in the blanks and choose synonyms for certain words. Good enough and a very good test at that. The test will check how much you have learnt in all your years of education, if you are a good reader, do you read good publications and do you use those words in your daily vocabulary. A very good test of your abilities and if you lack in something, you will go and read some more or engage in debates and conversations that improve your vocabulary. I was one of the top scorers of the class and was very happy; I knew I was on the right track being a book-whore (for a want of a better word). Then the teacher started discussing the answers and techniques and it didn’t really sound all that right, he wanted us to start mugging up words? What happened to learning words the good old way? What happened to using them in your day to day life? And why were obscure difficult sounding words a part of the book? And if that wasn’t strange enough, a week later all the vomiting types started scoring really well. They had to. They had the stuff they could vomit out; learn the words and their meaning forget about usage or anything else. That is not important, right? And so this person who couldn’t even pronounce “comb” and “Las Vegas” and whose grammar was something right out of class 5 was getting really good marks. I am not against her knowing the answers but she should have known them the right way and not by rote learning. The whole process of learning just gets lost in it.

Take a math or logical reasoning class. Ideally such questions test your ability to “logically reason”. The word is simple enough but here we were given set formulae and patterns. If this kind of question comes, do this or if this comes apply this formula. What happened to us actually thinking? Why were we made to think in a robotic fashion?

I am pretty sure when the MBA entrance tests were conceived this wasn’t on their minds, they actually

wanted to test a student for what he is. Is he really a manager material? You can get parrots anywhere but a manager is someone who has this quality in built or a talent enough to build it in himself and stand out. I know a person who is amazing in all of these. She has what it takes, an ideal MBA candidate if there ever were. She has a great abundance of knowledge and a sharp brain to learn. Wouldn’t you want someone like that for your company?

I decided to go for a GRE exam and in the language skills section I found my peace. They actually tested my usage and not my mugging up abilities. I loved it. I screamed out for joy and it was bliss. THAT is an exam. And then I found my calling in mass communication. Heaven.

As the MBA entrance results came out, I was less than surprised that many rote learners got great scores but happy for some of my friends who cracked those exams because I know they deserved it, they are made for the program and maybe in an ideal world, a world where your actual knowledge is tested and not your mugging up skills, they would be in better IIMs but wherever they are, they should know that they deserve it hundred percent if not more.

Oh and the ones who rote-learned their way to B schools, All the best. 

I LOVE this song!!!!

Because I absolutely LOVE this song and have been playing it on a loop and I just HAD to post it!!! <3 nbsp="">

Consumerism: How suddenly we need a lot of things to survive

John Berger, in his documentary, “Ways of seeing” talks about the publicity image. How an advertisement and the items and models depicted in it create a sense of envy in us that tugs at us and makes us feel incomplete without that particular item. How owning that one piece of item will make life so much better and every problem will be solved.

I am a victim of this.

As I sit around making a shopping list for myself, I suddenly realised how many unnecessary items I have on the list and how each one has its own reason for being that one infallible object that I absolutely NEED to buy. I am plagued by a need that all of us can identify with; I want to buy that perfect shade of gloss and get a facial done because I feel that is the only think to looking absolutely gorgeous. A new season means I want to buy new shoes and clothes because they will make me happy and feel better. If I don’t feel like going to work or to exercise, buy new accessories and you are good to go. For me, new things and items and shopping in general is associated with a whole change in life. I feel new, I might look the same to the other person yet I love it. I am motivated to work more and somehow, these materialistic things make much more sense than anything else.

I don’t know if this is right or wrong. Am I complete victim of a consumer society or the things that I buy are actually what I need. I try to think of the million beauty products that are marketed every day and then of the home remedies that my mother lists for me. In an ideal environment home remedies would work wonders, but now we live in a world where you have an uncontrolled amount of pollution, you are stressed, hardly have time for anything and hardly anything is pure and unpolluted. You can try using a neem leaf to clear your skin but as I have been hopping from one city to another in India, you won’t really find neem leaves in abundance and even if you do, they are so badly damaged with pesticides and pollution that their natural essence has already been ruined. Imagine rubbing neem leaf on your skin and suffering from a bad rash. Been there, done that. As with Aloe Vera, a plant every herbal skin expert swears by and yet when I applied it to my skin, I was itchy all over. And natural haldi and natural sandal paste, tried all and been hurt very badly. BB cream and bit of highlighter and bronzer and I have the perfect skin to go.

I am not propagating the use of chemicals on the face but on a personal level and with really horrible experiences somehow, I feel that with the damage that has been done to the environment and as work increases and one person is forced to do the work of ten, we are suddenly in need of many things that in the past would have been a luxury or a sheer stupidity.

There are many people who say that a phone is just to make calls and yet imagine yourself without your smart phones; they are your own personal computers within your reach. I have access to the internet all the time, I can troubleshoot work problems or a make changes on my project, indulge my hobby of photography, read a book, stay in touch with my overseas friends, check and reply to email, make a shopping list shop online, be within deadlines and in general be a lot more useful to everyone around me. So, yes, I feel they are pretty useful, we travel a lot and there are times when we have an emergency to attend to or a sudden submission has to be made and to be honest these emergencies and sudden submissions happen a lot with everyone, we are after all juggling work which was done by ten people in the past.

I am not passing a judgment on consumerism. There are many items which I feel are not really useful, packaged fruit juices for instance or fried chips. But then again, these are all our personal choices and here a conundrum lies, where exactly do our personal choices come in? Are we capable enough of thinking for ourselves or do we have our peer group, our parents and now advertisements telling us what to buy? This is an aspect of consumerism which I detest. If a person makes an informed decision to buy something on their own, there is no harm to it, he might actually be in need of the thing but with the world being as manipulative as it is, we hardly have anyone thinking for himself. Music is sold because the popular person in the college likes it and I need to buy it to seem cool enough, that dress looked good on her and it will on me too, I absolutely NEED to have that GUCCI bag, well because it is GUCCI and so on and so forth.

We are in this constant battle between our actual mind and the thoughts that are put in us. We might not even know it and we are controlled. Consumerism on its own is not dangerous but consumerism of our thoughts is. 

My parent's love story: Celebrating 25 years

He was 21 when he joined the Indian Army. After four years slogging in an engineering college, he was now an officer of the Indian Army. Young, enthusiastic and free from all academic pressure. The army training at Dehradun was intense, from learning modern warfare to fitness, learning how to be an officer, surviving and keeping the morale high, he did it all.
It was after two years of serving in the army when his friend, a fellow officer was to get married and the two best friends came to Ghaziabad, a small town near Delhi for the celebrations.
It was here that he first saw her, she was the bride's best friend, standing next to her at the engagement ceremony. At that time his parents were already looking for a match for him, he was now 23, a Captain in the Indian Army, tall, rugged and strangely handsome.
She was 21, a lecturer in a university, from an academic background. Fair with thick wavy hair and large almond eyes, she caught and managed to keep his attention throughout the wedding ceremony and a day later he tentatively approached his best friend's wife. Those were the times when asking a girl out would have raised many eyebrows and he didn't want to lose this one girl.
The new bride caught hold of her friend and told her of this young officer's interest in her, she was shell shocked. Her father was the terror of the locality and she kept rethinking scenarios in her head and replaying the whole wedding thinking she had not made and gesture to catch his attention, she was scared that her father would bury her alive. She told her friend the same thing and asked her to tell the young man to not try to contact her again.
A week went by with no contact and she was relieved. They were hosting a dinner for the newly weds and here, the bride told her parents about this young man. He didn't want to approach her in any way that would seem indecent and she gave them his home address and number. Soon, her father went to meet the officer's parents and was back within a day. He was enamoured. They were a large family of 7 kids with him being the second youngest. He was impressed by the young man's way of approaching his daughter and decided to   talk to them about marriage.
The young man was pretty smart, hitting right at the elders. He just had to impress the girl.
The first day he went for evening tea to her house, this was the first time he was to meet her. Her two younger sister's were eagerly waiting at the gates when this tall and thin man zoomed in on his motorcycle. They were mildly impressed but they wanted to see him. She was more scared than impressed and when he sat down on the sofa and she came out to talk , she was surprised to see just how thin he actually was. Coming from a Punjabi family she had never seen any man who wasn't fair and fairly heavy with a pot belly and here was this officer who had turned dark from training outdoor and well, he was very thin and tall with a very bad dressing sense. But she decided to give him a try. He was very intelligent, the way he spoke about things, his knowledge on everything and his ideas, they were so ahead of their time that she could not just ignore him and now even her parents were on his side, sly.
They decided to go out on dates and he would come to pick her up on his bike and her two younger sister's would sit behind him, leaving her alone and go for rides. He was forming a bind with her family and was catching her attention. On their first date she realised how little he actually ate, the whole morning they travelled around Delhi, watching movies and driving when during late afternoon he finally asked her if she wanted to eat something, finally! she thought. At the restaurant, suddenly it occurred to her that he was an army officer and well, they are supposed to be highly mannered and smart and she could not embarrass him while eating so she thought hard about what to order for lunch and then finally decided to go for cutlets, the only food she was sure she could eat with a fork and knife.He never really ate much and she could not ask him for more food and when she returned home by late evening, she had strong hunger pangs and was cursing him.
The next few dates were a climb uphill and as much as she liked him, it seemed that her sister's and parents liked him even more. That was until she met his mother, an old Punjabi mother ship who rejected her saying her eyes were too big and it looked like she had a squint.
Furious, she stormed out when she heard of it and refused to contact him ever again. She had never encountered any person like his mother and his over bearing sisters and it was a first for her. Once again he tried to contact her and found a connection.. His senior in the army was her cousin brother and he asked him to intervene. Seeing how strong family ties were here, he was being pretty smart here. They decided to meet at her cousin's house and he called his mother too. This was day her older cousin told her that he was very serious about her if he was trying to break his mother from the typical Punjabi mother in law mode and trying to get them to talk again. Soon enough, all was well and their wedding was on.
Their courtship lasted 2 years while he was posted in the treacherous north easter region of the country, an occasional latter every week from him and a number of rejected suitors from her side, they went on strong and finally were married a day after Valentine's day in 1989.
I guess, this would seem way more interesting to me as I know all the characters and as a kid I was fascinated by various tales my parents told me, their own version and then my grandparents would tell me their own version.
The stories of "after-marriage" are even more fascinating as is the fact that at my age, my mother was about to get married. And as they complete 25 years in February, I wish for many more and hilarious tales from both sides.
Cheers!

Being Mother

Imagine you are a happy 22 year old, your exams are over, your parents are going out of town and now you can lavishly enjoy your life, watch as much TV as you want, go anywhere you want, cook anything and sleep as much as you want and then suddenly the next day you are a mom, to two teenagers and one 6 year old.

Horror of horrors!

Your parents are out, you are the king of the house and you have these kids. If it is not crazy enough, picture the 6 year old yelling for maggie everytime the topic of food comes up. he rejects any other food, wants to constantly play on your laptop and mobile and chatters non stop about everything even when you ask him to stop. You make healthy food and he only wants chips a d chocolates and take outs and then wastes it after taking one bite, fights with his elder sister and creates a raucous in the house.

The 13 year old is even scarier. An adolescent with all the whims and fancies of a teenager and crazy mood swings, you are forced to bite your tongue at every instance she lashes out, your fist telling you to punch her and your brain forcing you to stay still calmly telling you that she WILL be like this, its adolescence!!! So you have her criticise your cooking, your clothes, pass rude comments about you, the heat in your house, the AC, the fact that your food is different from what she is used to and the fact that you are not entertaining her every single second. Then there is this issue of boredom, if every single second is not filled with the activity of  her choice, she will get bored and  start criticising every single thing, its like you have a constant mother in law in the house.

The saving grace is the 18 year old who finally understand the dilemma you are in and chips in to help you with the dog, the house and shopping.

And after all this you realise how much your mother did for you despite a constant urge to lock you in the room ( I am guessing that's what it is like). You have been a cranky teenager yourself, fought with her at every instance, sulked and cribbed at everything and been a mean person and yet your mother didn't really push you from the balcony. You only get to appreciate parents and everything they have done.

From shopping for groceries and daily items, to walking the dog, cleaning the house, utensils, clothes, managing the maids, cooking food, making sure the house is not destroyed by running kids and a dog, watering the plants and having no time for anything that you want to do.

You only appreciate how hard motherhood is and even though they are my younger cousins, all resentment washes away when at night the little one will come and hug you and your sisters worry about you and help you even a little bit.

Well, you cant really push them off the balcony after that, can you?

Recipe of a delusional romantic

I was all of thirteen when the first time I fell in love, he was tall, brooding, handsome and amazingly fun to talk to. Of course he was older than me and I loved that it made me feel so mature discussing my studies and books with him. When I finished reading the first four Harry Potters, he was the first person I ran to to discuss with. This was until one Friday in the school bus when he patted my head and told me that he was trying to set me up with a younger friend of his. That did not really shatter my dream world, and he lasted (or still lasts) as my long enduring first crush.

From the many Mills and Boons and Sweet Valley books that I read, I replaced the hero with him. I would imagine him as the swash buckling millionaire from Italy or a brooding writer from Paris, he existed in all my childish romantic dreams. Every guy that I met would be compared to him and even after losing touch with him after class 7, he kept growing in my dreams and evolved into a perfect custom made man for me. The romantic in me would never give up.
I would watch movies and cook up scenarios for "us" and as school proceeded, I somehow lost touch with any other guy because "he" was so amazingly perfect and no one could replace him. After a hasty and nervous phone call to him one day, I gushed for months at end. He must have forgotten about me by now and I am pretty sure I don't even know what kind of a person he really is but to me, he was my dream man.
Now that I watch my thirteen year old cousin gush over actors in movies and TV serials, show disdain for guys her age, I think of the delusional romantic in me.
Soon I fell in love with Ranveer, a character from my favourite show in class 9 and I would dream of a simple man who had come for vengeance, his style of talking , his intense eyes and his shirts, my perfect man was him and I was madly in love. I would watch him on TV for hours and my heart would skip a beat and in my many dreams he would come for me, dance with me and be mine. Of course the guys around me would lack in comparison.
I would never get over Ranveer and 'him' and my perfect man looked like a handsome mix of them, I would read many love stories and concoct scenarios in my head when a real life guy made these stories from my books come to life.
Suddenly I forgot all about my perfect guy, how he should talk, what he should talk about, what he should wear and how he should look. Suddenly this stumbling fumbling funny guy became my perfect guy. Strangely the delusional romantic in me was laid to rest, I stopped cooking stories in my head, I stopped dreaming up scenarios because the reality seemed all to surreal to me. And so "he" was just another person who I dont really know, Ranveer is that cute/hot guy I loved, xyz is just in a book, abc is from a movie and my perfect man is imperfectly with me and in my delusional romantic mind he makes me smile, laugh, cry and be myself with.

The girl with the Dragon tattoo and how it disturbed me

Last night, I sat up late after working on my college project and started watching The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.The movie is based on a novel by Steig Larson titled "Men who hate Women" in Swedish. As the events in the film unfold we see the female protagonist sexually abused and then raped, later we are told the story of some murdered women who have been raped and brutalised and then the story of a runaway girl who was first raped by her father and then her brother.
Apparently Steig Larson was inspired to write such a horrific book after witnessing a gang rape by three men of a women he once knew.When he went to apologise to her later on for not helping her, she did not accept it and never forgave him.(Source: Wikipedia)

This movie came days after I had seen the trailer for the film 3096 days which is based on a real life kidnapping of a young girl for 3096 days.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natascha_Kampusch)
And few days before Amanda Berry escaped her abductors who had locked her up and raped her for years.(http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/10/ariel-castro-amanda-berry-daughter)
This reminds me of the scary Fitzl incident of Austria in which a father has locked his daughter in the basement for years and repeatedly raped her, fathering seven children with her.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritzl_case)

These things disturbed me so much and have disgusted me. Not to mention the many cases of rape and abduction that we keep hearing of all the time. I am forced to ask myself again and again, why am I a woman? Why am I subjected to all this? Why is it that suddenly I have been thrown of the whole system of balance and made a weaker being who is meant to be mistreated?

A father raping his own daughter? What happened to the days when a father would come home with gifts and hug his little daughter? Why did she turn into a sexual object, even for him?

A brother raping his sister? Wasn't he suppose to protect her?

Then again, why I, as a woman even need protection? Why cant I live freely? Why do I keep asking these questions again and again? When will I stop asking them? When will I stop looking behind my back?

There are days like these when films and books like above disturb me so much. I was looking at the protagonist, Lisbeth and thinking that she is such a brave brave girl to survive. She attacked her rapist few days later and tattoos "Rapist" on his body. She tried to kill her father who attempted to rape her. And then sometimes I think, is it better to just die? When you are not treated as a human being, maybe in some years things will change or maybe in some years women might not just exist.

I don't know. All I know is that despite everything, women are not meant to safe. They are mere objects who are thrown from one person to the other. Maybe, they really should stop existing.

Decolonizing the Language

I write this post in English because it is the best language I know how to write with. I am an Indian with Punjabi roots and yet I cannot read or write properly in Hindi and I cannot even speak Punjabi. I am colonised still, even after 66 years of Independence.

But I am not alone.

 Almost everyone I know is like me. They are proud of the fact that they can converse fluently in English, write better English than many Englishmen and know little or no Hindi.

And we have people commenting on someone’s lack of English speaking skills, categorising them as “gavar” or judging someone just because he cannot string two words of English together and then going on to enunciate complex sentences in an attempt to appear all high and mighty.

This westernisation of our culture has seeped in so deep that now it is difficult to actually p0oint out where it all started and what exactly is wrong. Our politicians in the parliament( if you have been unfortunate enough to watch the Lok Sabha channel) argue in “English”, our cases in the court are argued in “English”, “English” news channels are the ones most watched( maybe not statistically but no one will say they like watching a Hindi news channel), the subscription of Hindi newspapers and periodicals is at an all time low and despite the fact that Hindi is our mother tongue, we are increasingly more adept at English than Hindi.

In countries where English is not their native language, it actually IS their second language and that does not deter them from achieving anything in the world. Italians are proud of their language and you can hear so many different dialects of it, Spanish speaking nations uphold their language in the highest terms as do the French and the Germans and the Bulgarians and the Arabians. They don’t care whether you understand them or not, get a translator if you can’t or learn their language. In UN meetings they speak in their own language while we, as a Hindi speaking nation speak in English.

We are so proud of the fact that we have one of the largest English speaking populations of the world but what about Hindi? We know all the letters of the English alphabets; they are on our tips but what about Hindi Akshar? We can easily count in English but do we know the whole Hindi Ginti?

We are divided into states based on their language yet we expect a Tamilian or a Gujarati to know Hindi because it is the official language. What about their native language? Why not encourage that? There is a human development index which ranks countries on the number of ethnic groups they have and India comes a close second yet we are not proud of it. We expect our population to be a linear one where everything we do is westernised. What about our own culture? Why do we frown upon a girl wearing Salwar kameez and appreciate the one in Palazzo Pants?

We talk of western ideas of feminism and an open culture but have we ever bothered to even scrape the surface of our own culture to know that these ideas have always been engraved in us? Did you know that until the Muslim invasion started in India, the women wore no dupatta, not even to cover their heads? Just one example of the kind of society we had.

I think I reached rock bottom when the other day I saw a Hindi book in my friend’s house and it was upright and I couldn’t read the title without tilting my head.

And that’s why I write this post in English. Not very proud of it.

Creeps after dark

Delhi is rife with creepy people crawling the city after dark, from passing lewd comments to doing condemnable acts, they are everywhere.As a girl in Delhi, walking alone at night can be a horrendous task, here is a list of creepy crawlers you might encounter and you should beware of.

1. Zara zara touch me: This category covers people who have a propensity to touch women for no rhyme or reason. So as you walk on a road minding your business or stand in a bus, a cold hand will suddenly brush against you or maybe when you are at a shop and paying the shopkeeper, he might think your hand is also a part of the payment.

2.Horn OK please: Many a bikers fall under this category, especially when its starts to get dark and you cannot see the shameless "man" on the bike, he would honk at you or play a lewd song just as he passes by you. The more creepy ones might want to follow you your circle around you for sometime.

3.The singer: The singer is the one you really want to slap hard. He will stand in a desolate location or maybe hide somewhere and start singing lewd songs when you are nearby. Once again, the creepier ones might just follow you and sing even more. You can hear songs from "choli ke peeche kya hain" to "Why this kolaveri Di?" all with double meanings and lewd connotations.

4.The Smartass: The smartass thinks he is very smart and clever with words. He is the one who will pass comments on your dress or your walk and team it up with some special sound effects that sound like he is in an orgasm of sorts.

5.One Direction: The braver ones of the creepy lot might try to strike conversation with you by asking you for directions and then, seeing that you were stupid enough in the first place to stand at night and talk to a stranger, offer you a lift or ask for your company to some place.

There are many more disgusting people on the road at night and as a lone girl on the road, it is always better to have some company or be home before dark. Ideally they should be publicly flogged, these creeps who have brains only in their pants, but as a smart woman it is always advisable to keep a pepper spray with you or better still, avoid situations where you might end up all alone in a dark road.

Pineapple and chocolate mousse Duet

This is a sweet dish made up of tangy pineapple and dark chocolate.

The ingredients are:

Del Monte Pineapple slices: 2
Del Monte Peaches halves: 4
Dark Cooking Chocolate: 9 tbsps
Coffee: 1 tbsp
Butter: 2 tbsps
Whipped heavy cream: 2 cups
Eggs: 7
Castor Sugar: 4 tbsps (or according to taste)

Pineapple mousse:

1.Take the pineapple slices and add a bit of sugar on it and keep on a low flame till it turns into a sort of gooey curd. Strain the curd and refrigerate for as long as you want. It lasts for a day or two.
2. Separate four egg white and whip them into stiff peaks with a tbsp of sugar and refrigerate.
3.Whip a cup of cream to soft peaks and refrigerate.
4. Take out the pineapple curd, strain it and add the remaining egg yolks to it.Mix well.
5. To the mixture, fold, a third of the whipped cream.
6. Now fold a half of the egg whites to the mixture and fold the remaining whipped cream.
7. Refrigerate the mixture.

The chocolate mousse has to be a bit bitter to counter the sweetness of the pineapple.

Chocolate mousse:

1. Whip a cup of cream to soft peaks and refrigerate.
2. Take the chocolate, butter and coffee and melt over boiling water till the mixture is smooth.
3. Separate the 3 eggs and whip the egg whites with a tbsp of sugar till soft peaks.
4. Once the chocolate mixture is cool yet warm to touch, add the 3 egg yolks to it.
5. Fold in a third of whipped cream and then half the egg whites and then the remaining whipped cream.
6. Refrigerate the mousse.

Serving:

Layer the pineapple mousse and chocolate mousse over each other and then top it off with peaches or whipped cream.

(PS: Check out http://www.facebook.com/worldfoody for the food adventurer!)

Awaiting Barfi! or not.

Barfi! starring Ranbir Kapoor is set for release on September 14.It is a story of a deaf and mute man and looking at the trailers, the acting seems commendable as the Kapoor stalwart does what every newcomer does to show that he can act, take on a role of an "abnormal" man.

But a personal take on this, I don't really think I am too comfortable watching films with such a subject matter.Somehow the Hindi film industry fails to hit the target like some other films like Rainman manage to do with a sensitive issue. I cannot pick point but there is a certain anomaly in our films with mentally challenged people. Be it My name is Khan or Black, the tone of the film, the settings and the music all adds a depressing "Oh you poor thing" feel to the movie that just diverts away from the whole story. In trying to show that the abnormal is normal, these films make the abnormal more abnormal and makes then stand apart.

So as SRK stood on a busy highway with a board reading, "My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist" or Amitabh Bachhan pirouetted around Viday Balan in Paa, you don't fall in love with the character but just feel sorry for them, a feeling the filmmaker were not trying to achieve (I hope).

Maybe the technicalities of the film are a bit botched or the someone is hitting the wrong spot. Another thing that I have noticed is the extensive use of depressing colours in the films. So if there is a blue setting, the film will have a sad bluish tinge or an orangish yellow casting an air of gloom all around. The music always seems like a funeral march and I don't understand if filmmakers can give over the top senseless sets to films like Cocktail and get amazingly Bollywood type music to that film, why can't the same be done in such films? Why do we have songs which are not even catchy but really umm for a lack of a better word, abnormal?

Science and Spirituality: Who can dissect the soul?

 “This discussion will start World War 3.” My best friend said as we sat discussing the concept of souls. She is a spiritual person and believes in the whole idea of souls and reincarnation while I, being a believer in science don’t really accept the ideas.

Many Masters Many Lives by Brian Weiss, a psychologist takes the concept of past life and deals with it scientifically, almost. It is not proven whether the doctor was right or was he just fibbing. He is a past life regression therapist now and talks about our “spirits” for the want of a better term travelling from one plane to another. In all there are seven planes but we, as humans have still been travelling in just two, the spiritual and the physical. He says he has seen proof of the human subconscious shifting between these, of people being born again and again in this physical world of them remembering their lives and of groups of spirits being born together again and again.

Spirituality has always believed in the human soul, of an unknown entity that guides us, that is the mind in our brain, that is the human in our lifeless machine and that believes in miracles and makes them happen. To a spiritual person, reincarnation is not a bleak possibility, but the truth of life, Hinduism, Buddhism and even Christianity talks of re-births and unfinished businesses.

Psychologist, Carl Jung talks of the human subconscious as something so powerful that holds the entire history of the human race in it and that hasn’t been tapped into yet. This does make sense, our brain is a powerful organ and we have hardly understood its function. We know of the chemical and neurobiological processes and yet we fail to explain how things work more importantly, how the human brain works. It is not a set of equations that can be broken down and studied or some hypothesis that can be easily developed with time.

Conspiracy theories are abound about past life regression that say it is all a fib, maybe that is possible but sometimes, there are things which we cannot explain, we have no answer to them. A man on his deathbed, a clinically dead man walks again, a person seems so familiar to you that you think there is a connection, things of which you dreamt one night suddenly seem to happen to you and you cannot understand it. Why do Psychics still flourish in this world of cold calculations? Why do we still get our horoscopes checked and believe in miracles when everything fails? And why is it that despite everything we are taught to have a strong will power and determination when there is no scientific proof that what we think affects the actual physical working of our brain.

Or does it?

Our thoughts so powerful, that they can alter the physical and chemical composition of everything that is happening in our body? How do we explain this process? What exactly is happening inside our body that makes it undergo such changes?

Dan Brown wrote in Angels and Demons that science is too young to explain everything and for the things we don’t understand, we should just keep faith.

Human beings are machines where each part functions in coordination with the other, a well oiled well meshed machine that is so complicated that even now we don’t know what is it that makes us “us”. Maybe the answer lies in our brain. We don’t understand it and hence concoct many reasons and theories to explain the inexplicable. It is a mass of unexplored territory, for the scientist and the spiritualist. It needs answers and in the absence of which it looks for alternative theories and accepts them because believing in something beyond our control, a power greater than us keeps us humble and helps evades so many questions. A time will surely come when we will have all the answers, about our soul, past life and many such questions that have created a heated debate in the world. Maybe Science will unravel it or maybe something else would, it is our brain that needs to be answered and it is our brain that will give the answer. It is only a matter of time.

Throwing away old clothes

Emptying your wardrobe after years of piling up clothes and assorted fabrics is always a difficult task. All sort of memories seem to claw at you as you throw open one old cloth after another. The jeans you wore during your graduation, your prom dress, your favourite T-shirt when you were a teen, everything just gnaws at you and opens up a stream of memories.

It has always been difficult for lazy me to sort my wardrobe, arrange anything in order and for years it has become a home to homeless junk. So, one can find my old extra large purple T shirt from the days when everything I wore resembled a tent to my skirts and shorts when I had toned thighs. Old caps from the days when I used to dress up like a guy to clothes I had bought to not clash with my faux red hair. Dresses that are out of fashion but still amazing, traditional clothes from my various cousins’ weddings and weird clothes that make me go what the hell was I thinking!?

Taking each item and sorting through it, rejecting it and making the decision to finally throw something away is so tough. I have been avoiding this for years, carting the contents of my wardrobe from Delhi to Pune to Mumbai to Delhi and adding on to the mess. Sometimes it comes in use when you want to go all out and wear old clothes and mix them with something else, a la hippie look. And sometimes it becomes a battle in futility trying to fit in everything in the cupboard. Mostly it is a bone of contention with my family which complains that I have the biggest wardrobe with the littlest space. I cannot throw away my clothes. It’s a disease.

Some clothes have history, like my Harry Potter coloured ones, the red and yellows, the colour of Gryffindor, my wizard robe look-alike clothes, some are my artsy hippie clothes for the days when I feel like a vagabond artist and some are my inspiration to lose weight, the sexy itsy bitsy ones in which I have to fit in.

Maybe you are not meant to throw away old clothes, maybe you just need to keep them safe in your cupboard as memory aids and maybe you can convince your family that you do need a another larger wardrobe after all.

Things Harry Potter has taught me.

People often talk about the Harry Potter fandom and don't understand why we love the series as much as we do. Here is a list of things HP has taught us and siriusly this is more than just some random kids novel.!

1. Love makes the world go round: As Dumbledore said each time, you can love and yes you can. The books taught us how love between friends, between siblings and kids of your friends, professors, neighbours, people who just know your name, house elves, half giants and dragons mean so much more than all the wealth you can accumulate in life and all the power you can get.And this makes you the strongest person you can ever be.The power to love.

2.The gray in between: Sirius said that the world is not divided into death eaters and good people.We all exist in between.Snape showed that a Slytherin can be brave and can love.And no one is pure evil or pure good. We are all humans after all.

3.No one is beneath us: What would the world be without those creature we cite beneath us? The house elves, the goblins(though they are mean), dragons, giants, pixies, unicorns, thestrals and centaurs all play such an important role. A lesson in life, no one is beneath us and they are all very very important.

4.No good comes of forced love: Merope bewitched Tom to marry her and yet he could never love her. Never force the love of a person, no good ever comes out of it.

5.Loyalty above all: People are so important to us that staying loyal to the ones we love makes us stringer than we are. And as the death eaters bundled together, we had everyone beckoned at the call of the DA.And the ones who were the most loyal, Luna, Ginny and Neville. The ones who never left and were always there to fall back on.

6.The bad are good too: A repeat of the gray area point but sometimes even the ones who wish us bad do us good for their own weird reasons.And Narscissa saved Harry...

7.And even if its all in the head why can't it be real? Why cant we dream and believe in what we want to? Whats in our head might as well be real. Dreams are very powerful.

A change in Life

Destiny, they say plays an important part in a person’s life. Firm believers harp on about its magic and the ones who don’t believe in it talk about being practical and real.

But sometimes we are confronted with such situations in our life where we have lost all control over the proceedings of the case. We cannot control what another person thinks or how the dynamics of a particular group and setting affect us and it is at that time we bow to the unknown.

For many, the unknown is God and for others it is fate or destiny, personally, I believe in a balance of things, karma or the yin yang two concepts that govern many things in my life. The Sanskrit Vedas talk about karma, like how many things we do, good or bad get an equal due, whether in this life or in the other. Obviously, I don’t believe in the next life concept, but the idea of getting just deserts is enticing. The yin yang is an oriental concept, martial artists use it, religious monks use it and philosophers talk about it. A circle with an equal balance of black and white with opposite colored circle on it, symbolizing the balance of things in life, man-woman, black-white, good-evil it is all there.

It can sound philosophical but science too has this concept. Science is what I believe in, what makes perfect sense and bears stark resemblance to life. You have the electrons and the protons, opposing charges in an atom, there is the north pole and the south pole of the magnet and the earth, acid and a base in chemistry, infra-red and ultra violet radiations for everything there is an opposite balancing force. Physicists are talking about the anti matter, the opposite of matter basically it is all about a balance in life, for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction.

But does this apply to human behavior? Does destiny or balance in things play out there as well? The human mind is an electrical process, thoughts and actions are all about converting chemical energy to electrical, mechanical to chemical, reactions and sparks flying everywhere in the human body and how they interact with other reactions sprouting through people and what it all creates, its chemistry, physics or something inexplicable.

When I talk about something that should change, I think about this balance. I am still not sure if it plays out in real life. If every deed you do goes out. Something bad you did meet an end and something good you did get a reward. Sometimes it plays out so well, when you see things getting their due, karma they call it, balance it is. But then again, sometimes it plays out so unfavorably. There are people who have been dealt with a cruel blow in their life, have nothing in life, are sad and helpless and are suddenly crushed to death under a rich man’s car who pays a hefty sum and is out. How does that play out? What do we make of things then?

Or on a larger scale, Idi Amin, the notorious dictator who supposedly drank his enemy’s blood in their skull killed millions and then spent the rest of his life in a political asylum in Middle East amidst riches. Is there really a balance here? Closer home, on a personal front, there is a person who doesn’t like you, they will say something that suddenly affects everything round you and one small miscalculation on your part or ignorance and you have the most important thing snatched away from you. Is it fair? We ask ourselves again and again.

Books have been written on it and sermons been delivered on a maniacal basis almost. People talk about getting out of the self pity mode or they say that what happened to you is all your doing but we need to be realistic as well and this is something I would like to change. If maybe we can control the electrical or chemical or some sort of dynamics of human behavior or human interaction, the wheel of life, it has to be the balance of things.

Optimists will talk about justice, it can be delayed but will always be there but this faith is wavering and it should not, the evil doers should be scared of it and the good-doers proud of it. The third law of motion talks about equal and opposite reaction and that is what I want in this world. A balance of things just so you know how things are working out and how you are doing and a balance of things to not let someone feel out of sorts not let someone feel like they have the bad end of everything and to encourage people to strive harder, work even harder to get what they want and if there is balance, if there is destiny, fate or god, they will get it.

Make the world a happier place.

Join this group to be a part of the change, to discuss and to know what others want: www.facebook.com/sftimetochange 

The Journey, not destination: From train to plane to boats and cars

Being an army kid, travelling is a part and parcel of my life and during these times I have often come across people who really make me question the country I live in! Sometimes I really really ask myself why they even exist and sometimes I develop a wishful thinking of wanting to know someone even more. Love them or you hate them, whether you are a social butterfly or a reclusive caterpillar, you must have encountered these travelling travellers.My recount of some of the most memorable ones as I journeyed through India.

1. The Overfriendly Traveller: I was sitting in New Delhi airport, all set for my flight to Siligudi where I would meet my dad who was posted in Kalimpong. I lived with my grandparents at that time and they have this weird sense of timing, so instead of reaching the airport, a respectable two hours before boarding, i was plonked at the steps of the airport four hours before time. needless, to say, I was one really angry lady and in order to make it very clear, I wore the hood of my sweatshirt, adopted a gangsta persona and went and sat at the bench. All was good in my angry gangsta world when this female interrupted me, she asked if I was going to Bangalore, I said now and leaned back in. Then, much to my annoyance, she started talking about herself, she was going to Bangalore(duh!) and was I studying in some college?(yes), she too! Which college, how was it?Where am I going, she could have gone on.So I took my cellphone out, dialled my dad';s number for he was the reason I had to subject myself to the brutality of the over friendly traveller and as I shot at him on the phone, i got up, took my suitcase and decided to spend the rest of the waiting time in a stall in the ladies room.Much more peaceful.

2.The family: This is one highly annoying brand of travellers you will even encounter and as my luck with traveling goes, I have met a quite a few. A general family has to have one annoying baby who can never be quiet, few ruffians of teens who have to jump and scream, some oldies and parents, those annoying people who have to be extremely loud. As I flew to Gangtok once, I met such a family, they had around 5 seats on the plane, ha no freaking idea where to sit or where their tickets were and had smartly decided to sit according to the names on the tickets. Unfortunately for us, we were prodded and pushed and jostled as they adjusted themselves. Then in the four hour flight, they had to eat a lot, I mean why cant they not eat and sit in peace, then they decided to play some loud talking game and be a general nuisance to everyone around. Now some people join such families in commenting how cute their kids are so the over proud parents decide to display how talents their baby is. And the poor baby is subjected to rounds of dances and songs as onlookers admired the decidedly white and pink blob of flesh. Families in trains get more annoying as you have to spend days with them and the best antidote is a pair of extremely string earphone.

3.The life experience: These kind of people you meet on different modes of travel. They wont be found on regular ones, more likely frequenting the unconventional modes. Like this one person I met on a speedboat in Goa who loved to talk about his prowess as a boatsman ad another on a boat in Alibag who pretended he was some amazing sea man as he regaled sea stories. It was informative and interesting for the first few hours after which it got a bit repetitive. But seriously, one can still talk to such people and not feel like slapping them. If only, try para jumping or bungee jumping or any kind of exotic sport and you will find extremely slaps-worthy characters. next time, I plan to get some pics.

4. The Photographers: We have encountered them all, haven't we? They have expensive cameras and love to click everything and anything. One such shutterbug happy traveller stood on the steps to Elephanta Caves in Mumbai, he stopped at everyplace and clicked everything, fair enough except there were his wife and mother screaming at him to hurry up and not waste time, he seemed immune to them. After all, if you love something, you have to pursue it, despite what everyone else thinks. So does that mean i can be a bikini model? Hell yes!

5.The family photographs: If I can eradicate one species, these would be it. They are the annoying twerps who carry their family photographs every-freaking-where! and if you don't pay attention, they will go on to pester you till you have to be polite and look at what they have been pointing at your face for the last half an hour. In a cab once, I met this man who wanted to show photos of his office and daughter and the swan and the pole in front of the office and the puddle near the office and the sink of the bathroom. I pressed my earphone tightly when this man simply removed them and entertained me for the remained for the journey with pictures in his mobile. Oh the joy!

And the travel bug has bitten: Check this out and pray for amazing travel partners(my wish, a hot Italian guy ;) )
http://www.expedia.co.in/

Small fat girl trekking

Growing up on a near continuous feed of books and literary characters, nature walks are nothing more than an occasional disruption in my perfect life tucked away in a corner of my house, reading a book. While reading, I fantasies about sitting in front of a fire, apple in hand and lost in the world of Darcys and courtesies. This would have been my ideal life if it wasn’t for my army man of a father, who it seemed, had taken upon himself to get my butt off the couch! And the days of grueling physical labor began.

Dads was posted in Pune at the College of Military Engineering and curse all army people, they decided to hold frequent treks in the nearby hills. Rain and sun be gone, all the damn army men thought it would be an ideal recreation and the whole of CME joined in, much to my utter disappointment. Routes were fixed, buses were arranged, tents set up and a large picnic area pulled in and then there was the trek. How much I dreaded it.

The first time, dad woke me up at an ungodly hour at 5 in the morning to gear up for the trek that started at 6.All I remember from that time is me, grumbling as I pushed myself into my sweatpants and equipped myself with munchies and water for what was going to be a long and hard day. It was the monsoon season and rains were merciless, but to the military men, it seemed all the more welcoming as we were pushed out of the bus on to the starting line of some hill, don’t ask me the name, I don’t really care to remember. Some orderlies were making Maggie at the foot of the hill and I wanted to eat but no, my dad wanted to torture me more and off we started walking. Dad is tall and I am short and stout, so I had to take two steps for his one, huffing and panting and it was only the beginning. The terrain got wet and muddy, more leaves and wilderness started sprouting around us as my new  hiking shoes became brown(yes, I had to get new ones because you don’t need shoes while reading!!!).We came to a paddy field and after much discussion with the farmer; we were allowed to trample across a small path in the icky muddy field. Mostly, I had my head down, counting my breath and watching out for the those dreaded creatures of monsoon, those icky slimy reptiles and insects, I didn’t want to encounter any and till date I don’t remember if I saw any, most probably I blocked the revolting things out. The green was too green and the rains lashed harder, my hair, my skin, my clothes were ruined and as I spotted the tents in the distance, I could only yelp for joy if I had the energy. After what seemed like hours and after my father pushed me a lot, we reached the tents and I would have reveled in joy at the task I had undertaken if it weren’t for my disgusting friends, those tall mean boys who had reached before me and were happily eating a chicken and mocking me. I mean, seriously, can’t a short fat girl sit and read in peace?

The next trek, I was prepared. It wasn’t raining; my dad was in full gear once again, I was fatter than before and smarter as well. So, after about twenty minutes if walking around some other god forsaken hill around Pune, I started complaining of headache and nausea. Now thing with fathers is that when they have a daughter, they really get paranoid if something happens when the mother is not around and that came to my rescue as Dad rushed me through the shortcut to the tents (I always knew there were shortcuts, army people are smart.) and this time, it was me, sitting in the tents, eating a chicken as I mocked my friends.

So much for my nature treks and for all it beauty and green-ness, I would still sit in front of a fire and read.